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A Triple-Standard Disk
On the heels of the news of Toshiba's proposed double-standard disk comes word that Warner Brothers engineers have applied for a patent on a triple-standard disk. The new disk would offer HD-DVD and Blu-Ray on one side and standard DVD on the other. From the article: "Warner's plan is to create a disk with a Blu-ray top layer that works like a two-way mirror. This should reflect just enough blue light for a Blu-ray player to read it okay. But it should also let enough light through for HD-DVD players to ignore the Blu-ray recording and find a second HD-DVD layer beneath." See the patent application, filed last month.
They can phase out old DVDs even faster now... you're paying extra for the HD content anyway, so why not buy the HD player? Seems like a new approached to planned obsolescence by Warner.
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No, you see then the purchaser could seperate the discs (give one to a friend). Obviously the studios would not like this...
:)
You aren't thinking nearly evil enough to be a film studio.
Or they could stop acting like children, sit it down, discuss the technical and logistical merits of both and DECIDE ON ONE STANDARD FOR NOW. ...
Just saying.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
definition: "Should" - a work that should never be allowed in describing a patent.
So they really haven't figured out how to do it? So what they file the patent hope they can figure it out and if not hope someone else does so they can sue them?
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
Now studios can release one disc that is pretty much universally playable. This should go a long way to encourage the adoption of HD-DVD AND Blu-ray. If these discs become prevalent, and people realize that they could upgrade their DVD player to a Blu-ray player, and still play their last 10 movies, but in higher quality on their HDTV, they might actually consider the upgrade. As opposed to now, where people might not upgrade because they must buy NEW movies and start a NEW collection in order to enjoy what they see as "slightly" better picture quality over DVD (as well as massive DRM!).
If I was a movie studio executive, I would support these triple-layer discs at any cost.
"Warner's plan is to create a disk with a Blu-ray top layer that works like a two-way mirror. This should reflect just enough blue light for a Blu-ray player to read it okay. But it should also let enough light through for HD-DVD players to ignore the Blu-ray recording and find a second HD-DVD layer beneath."
Oh, this sounds like just a wunnerful guarantee of problem-free operation on all the drives, Blu-ray or HD-DVD, that were designed and produced with really tight tolerances before this mutant format was conceived. No problems with marginal signals at all, nosireee, we promise.
-k
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
Just what the shelf life of these would be. Assuming it works and they figure out how to press the disk it sounds VERY touchy.
:(
How much of a scratch would it take to mangle the BluRay data that is being read off this semi-transparent layer. I thought those were pretty sensitive to start with.
How about the stability? Will any of the optical properties change over time of any of the several compononts involved? Will your new Disney disc last til your kid is out of elementary school?
All sounds like trouble waiting to happen to me.
Especially as the patent included a lot of SHOULDs to start with
oh well, pretty much a mental exercise as i am not going for either one for quite some time.
So this actually looks like one of the first articles on slashdot that actually covers a real patent. Not some stupid lame one-click, conjugation, whatever other simple and obvious nonsense. This format for these disks actually seems fairly patent worthy.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
The real question then, is what percentage of people have actually bought a new TV set during the past 2 years or so. if only 10% of the public bought a new TV set, then only 4% of the public has HD sets. And how many of those sets are 720p? Half? Now you're down to 2%. How many of those customers are in the upper middle class and higher and bought 2 or 3 HD sets. Now you might be down to 1% of households. Sure, it's growing, and will keep growing, especially as people are forced to replace analog sets with digital.
So where's the market for Bluray and HD-DVD now? DVD looks fabulous at 720p, it already has the resolution for that. Why do I need HD-DVD or Bluray? I think they have plenty of time to work out a resolution for this. If a dual layer disc with both formats is the ticket, fine. Just don't make me pay the freakin' royalties for each format on each disc I buy. I'm not paying $40-50 dollars to buy a movie. And while I'm on the subject of 'not paying for', I don't think the HD players are going to really become sellable until they are under $200 with low end models under $100. If they want to replace DVD they are going to have to make it so that it's not worth it to pay just a little bit less for DVD.